Title: The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.
Author: Nichole Bernier
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group (Random House)
Source: Publisher for review
The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. is a thought-provoking novel about relationships. How well can you know your best friend? Or your husband? Which characteristics or habits are you willing to overlook or fool yourself into believing don’t exist?
Those are some of the questions most people don’t explore. Through the journals, Kate discovers Elizabeth’s philosophy that sharing confidences only makes the other person feel worse. It helps explain why Elizabeth never told Kate some of her most private heartaches or why she was really on the plane that crashed. The journals also help Kate figure out she needs to move beyond the fear of this new post-9/11 and live her life. No one can plan for every contingency.
The back and forth between Elizabeth’s journals and Kate’s life have the give and take of a conversation. This format was one of my favorite aspects of the novel. It’s not something that was easily pulled off. Bernier had to put a lot of time into revisions to make it flow properly.
Sounds interesting. I’m sure we don’t know other people as well as we think we do – sometimes I wonder how well people know themselves.